Unclean Apparition
by Hawkflight7
Summary: "Just one drink's enough for me, but I can't speak for the shadow beneath me." Semi-sequel to Ivoryblood


**Unclean Apparition**

 **Summary: "Just one drink's enough for me, but I can't speak for the shadow beneath me."**

 **Well, here's the long awaited semi-sequel to Ivoryblood. This fic serves to fill in the gap of what happened directly after Weiss' disappearance. There will be a proper sequel as to where Weiss ended up afterward and the story following it, because the Old Gods demand it.**

 _ **"It is a mistake to fancy that horror is associated inextricably with darkness, silence, and solitude."**_

 _ **H.P. Lovecraft**_

"That's all for this session. Remember to have your teams decided before tomorrow so we can get right into it. You are dismissed." Professor Glynda Goodwitch punctuated her remark by bringing her whip down on a sleeping students' desk.

The exchange student jumped right back up into the waking world, clearly startled, with their eyes darting around before realizing what had happened. Then the young boy simply groaned and placed his head back on the desk as Glynda started to berate him for falling asleep in her class. That such behavior in the field would - obviously - mean the difference between life and death, finishing with that if he was having a hard time sleeping he should get some coffee in the morning or take something to help him turn in for the night.

And then - predictably - Glynda turned and headed up the stairs towards her team. Just like every other professor had. Ruby got up from her seat, slinging her pack over her shoulder that held her school supplies, walking out from the desks and onto the stairs.

"Miss Rose, do you know where Miss Schnee is?" Glynda asked, stopping just a few steps below her. "I've heard that she wasn't at any of her classes today except the ones before lunch."

Yep, more of the same. "I haven't seen her since lunch," Ruby confessed for the third time. "She said she had to go and take care of something before she could get back to her classes, but it didn't sound like it would take this long-"

"We were just going to go out and look for her, professor." Yang's hand on her shoulder was reassuring, and Ruby let her body relax a little bit, feeling the tension slip from her muscles.

"Yes, that would be best." Glynda pushed her glasses up her nose, eyes traveling between the teammates. "I shouldn't have to tell you this, but being approved to be a student here is not a trivial task and I wouldn't want to see anyone squander it or get kicked out for missing class too many times."

"Hey-" Yang took a step forward, hand curling into a fist.

Glynda held her hand up, interrupting her. "Please, Miss Xiao Long. I am not saying this to anger you, it's just a fact. Miss Schnee hasn't skipped class before and I believe this to be a special situation, myself. So when you do find her please direct her to me or Ozpin so we can make sure something like this doesn't happen again."

"She has been really tired lately and not sleeping well," Blake slipped in.

"Then perhaps you'll find her back in your dorm room, sleeping after doing whatever it was she needed to do so badly that it cut into her schooling. I hope to see you all in class tomorrow. We'll have an uneven amount of students otherwise." With that Glynda turned and walked back down the stairs, leaving the three young hunters standing there.

Ruby tightened her grip on her bag. "Shes' right." She turned to Blake and Yang. "Weiss might just be at the dorm, we should check there first." Ruby hurried up the stairs, her teammates just a step behind her as she made her way back to the dorms. It seemed to take longer than normal with how frantic she was to find her partner and make sure she was okay.

So when she finally gripped the door knob in her hand she pulled it open with the widest smile she could muster, calling in cheerfully, "Hey, Weiss! It's time to wake up sleepy head!" Ruby stopped in her tracks after taking a few steps into the room, eyes widening at the sight that greeted her.

The sheets of Weiss' bed were all ripped up, her case that usually carried her dust sitting ontop of it, open and empty. The coffee mug she kept on the dresser lay shattered in pieces on the ground, the picture she had put up on the wall when they first moved in looked like a set of claws had run through the tapestry. And the closet was wide open, only Weiss' gowns torn to shreds and hanging by mere threads inside.

"What happened here?" Blake voiced the question shortly after stepping into the room and looking around, opening a drawer that held more of Weiss' things to see them in a similar state of destruction.

Yang had walked past Ruby, bending down to pick something up from the ground and turn it over. Ruby let out a gasp at seeing the picture they had all taken together, the glass missing from when it must have hit the floor and shattered. The place where Weiss was suppose to be smiling with the rest of them was missing, shredded into little flakes within the frame, some stuck to the wood, more surrounding the broken glass on the floor. "Who would do this?" Yang's eyes held a red tinge to them as she stared down at the marred photo, but they had more pressing issues than this.

"What about Weiss? We need to find her-"

"Woah, what the heck happened here?" The familiar voice of Sun came from the open doorway.

"Is everything okay? Party too hard last night?" Neptune asked as he poked his head in, eyes going wide at the state of the room a second later, his voice losing the initial humor to it.

Ruby spun around to face them. "Weiss is missing and someone came in here while we were at class and tore apart everything of hers.'"

"Missing? But we just saw her at lunch- Oh, _oh_ , that's when-"

"She went missing," Blake finished for him, closing the drawer she had opened before walking over. "She didn't say anything about where she was going when she left though, we checked here first because she had trouble sleeping lately, but..."

"Hey, no problem. We can just track her scroll to find her, right?"

Silence met him for a second and then Ruby jumped forward, "You're a genius, Sun!"

"Sure, but..." Blake frowned. "We've never used that function before, I'm not even sure if it needs to be set up prior or not."

"Sure, you can. Give me your scroll, Blake." She handed it to Sun a second later, who promptly gave it to Neptune. "Work your magic, nerd"

"Intellectual," Neptune corrected as he took the scroll, fingers tapping away a second later. It took a few minutes, but eventually he stopped finicking with the scroll, his brow raising as he handed it back to Blake. "It says she's somewhere in Forever Fall."

"Let's get going then. If she's been there this whole time she probably doesn't even know what happened to the room. I'm going to beat the shit out of the person who did this once we know she's safe." Yang was the first one out of the door, eyes blazing red.

Ruby wanted to calm her sister down, but there really wasn't any time. Especially with the very real possibility that someone was threatening Weiss. So she followed her out a second later, calling for the others and Blake to keep the scroll out so they could find Weiss as quickly as possible.

 **~ o ~ O ~ o ~**

"Someone else showed up in the nurses' office this morning with weird scars and internal damage. From what I was able to gather they took a few days to go, though. They didn't notice anything until they started sparring, and then they experienced some pain from the strenuous activity around the same place they had the scars."

"So it wasn't as deep as the other one?" Cinder asked, eyes roaming over the courtyard rather than focusing on her.

It was a bit frustrating, having Cinder listen to her but not look at her. On one side it was expected with the weird things happening the last few days, she was just keeping an eye out for anything strange. But... Emerald would appreciate it if the woman that had saved her from the streets not too long ago would recognize her abilities every once and awhile. No, that wasn't a fair comment, clearly Cinder appreciated her, it would just be nice if she _showed_ it more. It's all she really wanted.

"No. The bone was a bit cracked, but not shattered or anything like that."

"So, how does someone get injured in a dream? And why is it only a handful of students experiencing it? I've never heard of a Grimm that can do these things." Mercury spoke up, right before throwing another chip into his mouth from the little bag he held.

"I'm not sure. But it's fascinating." Cinder turned back to them with a smile. "It would be even more so if it was a Grimm, we could really use something like that in other upcoming operations. But if there were _she_ would have mentioned it."

Salem.

Emerald kept hearing the name, and from what she had heard she wasn't looking forward to meeting the woman. "Well, we know at least two people that have gone to the infirmary for this, so it's barely even a handful of people. I'm certain there's others, but everyone that went to the infirmary said they got injured in the dream. So there's probably more, they just didn't get injured, or not as bad as those two anyway."

Cinder sighed, the smile leaving her face. The information had excited her a few days ago, but with no leads... "You mentioned Weiss said something pecuiliar that day."

"Hm? Yeah, she went to the infirmary and when I asked why she was there she said it was for her own scars. I didn't see anything obvious, but it would make sense that she had experienced the same dream as the others with random new scars appearing around the same time."

"That would be a really big coincidence otherwise." Mercury craned his head back a second later, looking off into the distance. Distracted by something then, probably some chick's skirt. _Great._ Right when they needed to be putting their heads together to figure this out.

"Have you been able to speak with her?"

"No. I caught her shortly after lunch began, but she was running of somewhere and said she'd hangout some other time." Mercury let out a cross from a snort-chuckle at her words. "Anyway-" Emerald began with an irritated noise.

"Something's up with the RWBY crew."

"Huh?" Mercury pointed in the direction he had been looking and Emerald turned around in the bench she was sitting in. "Weiss isn't with them..." she muttered the words to herself, noticing their rather frantic movement as they headed straight to the aircraft pads. Along with the monkey faunus and his teammate - the one infatuated with Weiss. "Something's wrong."

"Go. I'll stay here. Neo's keeping her ears open." Cinder dismissed them with a wave of her hand.

Emerald paused, giving a nod of her head as Mercury was already in motion, swinging his legs over his seat and taking off after the team. She followed him a second later, calling out when they were nearer.

"Ruby! What's the rush?"

Ruby slammed ot a halt, whirling around to see who had called her name, looking even more frantic than before, and then her eyes met Emerald's and dissapointment filled them. "We're looking for Weiss, she's been missing since lunch started and someone tore up her room."

"Oh." That was quite the explanation, and not what Emerald had expected. Weiss missing? Right after these weird dream attacks had started? And she had implied herself that she had been injured in one. This _had_ to be connected. "We can help you look." Cinder would be esctatic if they could come back with some real news about this phenonem.

"That would be great." Relief flooded into Ruby's eyes, obviously appreciate of the help, even if it wasn't for the same reason - not that she would think of that possibility. "Thanks, both of you."

"No problem."

"Ruby! Let's get going!" Yangs shouted from within the bullhead.

"I'll be right there!" Ruby turned and started running off soon after. Emerald glanced at Mercury, noticing the spark of curiosity in his eyes before he took off and she followed soon after. It was interesting afterall, as weird as this whole thing was; she was just hoping for an answer or two this time.

 **~ o ~ O ~ o ~**

They weren't able to land exactly where the coordinates showed Weiss to be, and Emerald could feel the tension in the air as they walked through the woods. Weiss' location hadn't changed or _moved_ even once since they rushed out here; her teammates had to be thinking the worst. Emerald wasn't sure what to think. Had Weiss passed out in the woods and suffered a dream injury that left her unable to move? Or had it been a fatal strike? If that was even the case. Hell, maybe she just dropped the scroll when a Grimm attacked her and forgot about it. Which actually sounded less likely now that she was thinking about it.

"What do you think?" she whispered to Mercury, who was walking next to her, the both of them drifting behind the main group.

He shrugged. "I'm more curious what she came out here to do. It's secluded and they said someone tore up Weiss' things, so it seems safe to presume that someone led her out here."

"The person responisible for those dreams, you mean?"

"Maybe, if it was their semblance. That would be a hell of a semblance, though."

"Yeah..." Emerald paused, stopping for a second when she almost ran into Sun's back. _Shit._ Had he heard any of their conversation? It would be troublesome if the group in front of them thought they had something to do with Weiss' disappearance if they learned how much more they knew about it - the possibilities - than them. "What's up?" she asked, hoping he hadn't heard their whispers.

Sun didn't respond verbally though, instead he raised his tail to point in the direction in front of him. Emerald stepped around him to get a better look, blinking at the odd-dressed person in the middle of a clearing ahead of them.

Going by the width of the shoulders it was a man; he was facing away from them and had a gold-looking metal cone on his head though, so it was hard to be sure of the mystery person's gender. Well, she would refer to it as 'he' for now until they knew more. A long dark grey coat with a blue tinge surrounded him, just stopping a few inches above his feet, adorned with black boots. Even with the sun nearly hiding behind the horizon, barely seeping through the branches she could see dark splotches of red on the outfit.

Her heart skipped a beat.

"The scroll says she should be right in that clearing," Blake hissed.

Yang's eyes narrowed at who she clearly assumed was the culprit for this whole thing, taking a step forward only to jerk in place when the figure shouted.

 _"Master, look! I've done it, I've done it! I smashed and pounded and grounded this rotten siren into fleshy pink pulp!"_ He flung his arms out to his sides, as if addressing some god in the sky. _"There, you filthy monstrosity! What good's your immortality now!? Try stirring up trouble in this sorry state! All mangled and twisted, with every inside on the outside, for all the world to see! He heh heh ha ha haah!"_

Her blood had run cold, freezing over in seconds as he kept shouting; her heart stopping for a few seconds at the inhumane laughter that filled the clearing.

What... what was this? He couldn't possibly be talking about Weiss. Though, her scroll had led them here, she was still nowhere in sight, and for all his savage words Emerald couldn't see a body laying ontop of the grass anywhere. If they were going to gloat about such a thing, surely there would be a body? It made no sense otherwise.

And what was this talk of immortality? The grimm? Because they were never-ending and seemed to come back from death itself with the sheer numbers they held? But if this madman had killed a grimm... why was there blood all over his clothes? She couldn't even tell if there was any on the blades of grass surrounding him. The colors would simply merge in this forest.

Yang must have shaken herself out of seeing such a bizarre spectacle and placed a foot forward, only stopping when the man turned his head as if to look at her. It was hard to tell if he was actually looking at her - them - with that weird helmet of his.

 _"Oh, you, is it? Look at this! Thanks to you, I've done it! Well? Isn't it wonderful? Now master can be canonized as a true martyr! Ha ha ha ha ha ha! I've done it! I have! Hah h-hah ha ha hah!"_

Ember Celica _clicked_ as it switched to its offensive mode. "Shut up!" Yang shouted, flying forward at the man a second later.

He didn't seem to hear her though, continuing to laugh as she quickly closed the distance between them. The shot rang out in the clearing once she was on top of him, a flare of light making a sort-of halo within the man when the gun went off. And the light bloomed out into his frame, turning him translucent before he finally disappeared, whispers of color trailing off into the wind.

"What?" Yang had come to a dead stop, obviously as surprised as the rest of them.

The man hadn't been real? Just some apparition? Emerald couldn't doubt it being a possibility after the things she had seen since Cinder took her in. Maybe that's why she was the first to move forward, while everyone else remained frozen - Mercury was glancing around the clearing as if he expected another to appear, perhaps trying to find where the man had gone if it was just his semblance that made it seem like he disappeared?

Either way, Emerald stopped a few paces in front of Yang, glancing down at a piece of paper that was obviously worn with age, rips and holes filling it. She crouched down, grabbing it and turning her scroll on for some light to see what was written on it - or what she could make out.

 _We ex/e/d this in/at/ to Al/red_

 _/ Castle_

It was the only thing she could make out without having to completely guess at the words. Some formal invitation, but it wasn't directed at Weiss, so it was safe to say it must have belonged to the man. Alfred? It's the only thing that passed smoothly on the tongue, and there was no last name. There seemed to be something scrawled in after it, but just glancing at the _E_ made her stomach turn. It was only long enough to be one word. Executioner.

"What is it?" Ruby's voice piqued up from behind her shoulder, obviously hopeful, but there was no mistaking the terror in her voice, the worry for her friend after seeing _that_.

"It's not Weiss'. Just some old paper in the woods." Emerald slipped it into her pocket as she spoke, standing up a second later to turn and face Ruby.

Which was a mistake. The young girl had tears prickling at the corner of her eyes, even as she refused to let them fall and give up entirely on her friend. She was tempted to give her a hug, to comfort her, but-

"Ruby, it's Weiss' scroll." At Blake's voice, Ruby darted off to her friends who had drawn closer to the center of the clearing. From where she was standing Emerald could see that the scroll was clearly not functioning, the light was flickering in and out, the screen probably shattered.

"Chi... Kage?" Ruby was silent for a second. "What does that mean? ...why does it look like the screen is bleeding?" A tear slipped from the corner of her eye.

"Probably the screen malfunctioning, it took heavy damage." Sun assured her.

"But... what... where's Weiss? We found her scroll, so why isn't she here?"

A question met with silence, until Yang spoke up, "Is this _Chi Kage_ it malfunctioning as well? Someone must have left it there as a message-"

"Well, yeah." Neptune was frowning down at the scroll. "It's always left as a message."

"What do you mean?"

"It's just a common fairy tale in Mystral used to scare little kids from doing anything bad, but some people swear they've seen a Chi Kage. Something hideous and twisted, inhumane. A warped piece of reality." Neptune sighed. "It's not really a concrete myth, what it looks like changes from story to story, but the word itself translates to _Blood Shadow_. Which could explain the man we saw, but... I really don't know anything else about it. No one does."

With a glance at Mercury she knew that wasn't true, but her companion clearly wasn't about to speak up. He was too busy looking pre-occupied with his own thoughts. It was unlikely he would add anything to their conversation, at least nothing enlightening. And it's not like she knew for sure that he could clear any of it up, but he had clearly recognized the word. And now that she was thinking about it of course he did - he was from Mystral himself.

She was trying too hard to wrap her mind around everything that had happened just now that she was chasing her own thoughts in circles. Emerald closed her eyes, trying to clear her mind, to stop the throbbing in the back of her skull that told her she was about to have a massive headache.

It was just beginning to get silent while the group got louder and louder; Yang getting frustrated and therefore angry, Ruby probably full out silently crying at this point with the way the mood was quickly turning sour. It was clear Weiss wasn't here, it was unclear if she was even still alive or not. Something the others were obsessing over. And she couldn't make herself care about, not with so many questions and no answers.

Beneath the shouting and pleas to calm down there was a single snap of a branch from her left, and Emerald's eyes snapped open and she spun to face the direction, taking off as soon as she saw the edges of a dark cloak dipped in crimson.

She tore through the forest like a bloodhound, hopping over fallen logs and weaving through the brush. Her weapons at the ready a few moments later, cutting away anything that obstructed her vision even temporarily. Until she slid to a stop, glancing around, trying to catch another glimpse of that cloak. Even with her eyes darting to and from every dark corner, blood thrumming through her body, she screamed when the creature fell from the uppermost branches, quickly silencing her with it's hand now wrapped around her windpipe.

Her eyes widened at the odd little tufts of red and purple fur covering its body, even as both her hands came up to grapple with the set of claws on her throat, keeping them from sliding into her skin as the _thing_ braced her up against a tree. Her aura was pulsing around her, trying to find the direction of the attack, the reason for her quickened heartbeat. The creature opened its mouth, sharp yellow teeth gleaming in the moon's light from beneath its hood, twisted around each-other like spikes. Two beady green eyes caught just enough light for her to identify their location, sunken in the back of it's head. It's face was clearly more angular than was natural, and it wasn't a grimm.

A shot rang out in the air and the creature _screeched_ , setting every hair on her body upright from the bloodcurdling gargle that left it's throat. It let go of her instantly, and she slid against the tree, eyes just catching the deep gouge in its leg before it disappeared once more.

Emerald coughed, her fingers quickly checking for scratches on her throat, but it seems her aura had held against the creature's strength, even though it felt it was going to shatter in a few more seconds. She finally looked up to see Mercury lowering his leg from firing at the thing.

She took a breath. "Did you see it?"

"No. I just saw you struggling for air as if something had you by the throat."

"And you fired at it?" She wasn't sure just how logical that was, firing at what must have looked like empty air.

He shrugged. "I figured they had an invisibility semblance or something."

"It wasn't human."

"An invisible grimm, then."

"It wasn't a grimm." Emerald was sure of that. Grimm had a very distinct look, and they didn't run around in tattered clothes either.

"Are you suggesting it was a Chi Kage, then?" he questioned, brow raised. A silly question to ask since she still wasn't sure what that was even suppose to be, but by the brief description Neptune made she wanted to say yes. By the look on Mercury's face she didn't want to answer, so she didn't. "We should get back to the others for now and discuss this later."

"Yeah," she agreed, getting up and following him out. Though, her skin prickled as if something was watching her.


End file.
